It appears we’ve gone and American Cupped again.

The original competition start time was listed as 11:00am CT, but it looks like we’re not starting until 11:30 CT now. IT WAS ALL A VICIOUS LIE.

Athletes are competing in two rotation groups (one of 7 athletes and one of 5) (I know…), which will effectively maximize “showing Morgan sitting there while Hitomi Hatakeda goes on bars” time.

Among the first group of meets, Illinois/Kentucky is the ranked matchup, but keep an eye on what Northern Illinois gets up to as well. Currently, NIU is well back in 42nd, but another 196 this week would be enough to gain some ground and get into the regionals conversation. George Washington, as well, will be looking for a season-high 196 in the early action, though GW’s peak score is not as high as NIU’s. Both are currently well on the outside of regionals spots and need a huge result.

Gymnix is really leaning into this whole TWO SEPARATE opening ceremony performances thing. The Mag 7 during the Atlanta gala vibes are strong.

Double-duty on the Pac-12 meets this afternoon.

Score goals at Utah/Washington: Utah is looking for 197.450 to move back ahead of Michigan and LSU and retain the #4 ranking for another week. Washington is looking for 196.875 to move ahead of Kentucky for 12th place.

Score goals at Arizona/Cal: Arizona is currently sitting in 26th and could move up as high as 23rd with a season high (currently 196.150). Cal’s home scores are already solid so the team will be at 9th on Monday regardless of what happens here, but a huge number would help lift the possible NQS ceiling for next weekend’s visit to UCLA.

Denver and Oklahoma is getting started shortly. Denver is going with the same lineups as last weekend—not that there was a lot of choice at this point.

Also, Maggie Nichols is doing three events today, which is totally at odds with the “WE DON’T KNOW WHEN SHE’LL BE BACK” messaging from last week. KJ, you should know by now you can’t say undefined things like that to insane people like us.

The first one to get underway today is New Hampshire/Michigan, which is a pretty important meet for UNH, currently hanging around the drop zone and looking for a high 195 today to start to get rid of a bunch of 195.1s that still have to count and aren’t helping the regionals quest. Michigan is of course in a pretty safe position at this point but would like to make sure some residual 196s go away with something like another home 197.3.

Rotation 1 starts with another near-stick from Heiskell on a full, small bounce back, good position. 9.900 with a no-stick. Was last week a trend?

In the earlier Pac-12 action, Arizona broke 196 while Stanford had a 2nd-meet-of-the-weekend nightmare on vault to end up with a fairly unhelpful 195.225, which will not be enough to stay in the top 25 on Monday.

In the second meet, we had a close one with no working live scores (FUN!) in which a 9.900 from Leonard-Baker in the final spot for Arizona State on floor clinched a tie with Washington, both teams on 196.875.

Now on to the big one.